


stand back on the edge of your voice

by fideliant



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, Coma, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 14:45:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3533303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fideliant/pseuds/fideliant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After getting injured on a joint mission with Harry, Eggsy wakes up.</p>
<p>Only he doesn't. Not exactly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stand back on the edge of your voice

**Author's Note:**

> This was initially a 200-word scene from Class Of Conduct that got cut because it screamed for its own story, and then like everything else I've written for Kingsman, just spiralled wildly out of control. There was supposed to be porn in this, but I just... couldn't. D= Nonetheless, please enjoy?

“I can’t believe he got away,” Eggsy complains, holstering his gun.

Standing next to him, Harry pushes his glasses up and makes a dismissive sound. “Capturing Rosenblatt was optional,” he reminds Eggsy. “At this point in time, anyway. We’ve managed to secure the asset, which means that the mission has been successful overall.”

Eggsy kicks moodily at a bit of broken glass next to one of Walder Rosenblatt’s dead mercenaries. The study that they’ve raided is in absolute shambles, with smashed ornaments everywhere and burned books all over the floor and bullet holes peppering the walls, bookcases, window frames. Bootprints and soil scuff the carpeting. The only piece of furniture left standing in the room is Rosenblatt’s executive desk, a large wooden monstrosity of a fitting from which Harry’s just retrieved several documents detailing the refinement of weapons-grade plutonium.

“He literally slipped right past us,” Eggsy snaps. “Out the damn window, of all things. Do you realise how crap that’s going to look on the report?”

“The report will note that the primary objective was achieved with no collateral damage, and that will be that,” Harry says unconcernedly as he flips through the manila folder in his hand. He’s bleeding a little from the cut he sustained on his forehead from when the two of them first stormed the grounds, the blood trickling down the side of his nose. That and his slightly mussed hair and the dirt smudges on his suit shouldn’t be making him look so god-damned _fuckable_. Well, more so than usual. Eggsy’s just trying not to look at him too much.

“And what if he blows something up again?” Eggsy asks. “That’s going to be on us, innit?” It’s a valid question — he hasn’t been put on the trail of many serial bombers in his limited time with Kingsman, but if they’re anything like in the movies it’s unlikely that Rosenblatt planned to stop at just two attacks. Going for a third and making it the biggest, most devastating one of all seems like a natural progression of events along the lines of gold-standard evil villainy.

Harry snaps the folder shut and shakes his head. “Most if not all of his ordnances are held in this location,” he explains. “Trusting that our intelligence is accurate, of course. And we have this now,” he indicates the folder, “meaning Rosenblatt will have to rebuild his resources from scratch. Which leaves us plenty of time to relocate and apprehend him for good.”

“Just sounds like more work to me,” Eggsy groans, and kicks at some more glass.

“Mm, yes. Quite unfortunate. And you’ll want to stop doing that, or you’ll spoil your shoes.”

Rolling his eyes, Eggsy complies. He folds his arms instead and looks out the broken window at the rolling green hills of rural Dachau. It’s a nice countryside, perfect for long drives and trekking and sightseeing, not to mention sequestering of the modern villain’s lair, and he thinks he might come back on holiday one of these days for that. The sightseeing, not the lair bit. He’s had more than his fill of fighting through mook-packed bunkers and being shot at for the year, thanks.

“Excellent work today, by the way,” Harry says, smiling. “Though I must say it’s always a privilege. I forget at times it is often invaluable to have someone to work with. You remind me of that.”

Eggsy shrugs and studies the ruined carpet, if just to conceal the stupid grin he’s sure is spreading across his face. Harry probably still sees anyway, but never mind that. So long as he doesn’t catch on to Eggsy’s pulse jumping in his throat, the flush creeping up his neck, the loose feeling in his chest that always unfolds whenever he’s around Harry. It never gets loose enough for anything to slip out, though he’s been having more difficulty with that as of late.

“You know me. Always got your back, yeah?”

“Indeed. Thank you, Eggsy.”

“ _Gareth_ ,” Eggsy says immediately. “What if Merlin’s listening in?”

“He isn’t,” Harry replies. “Rosenblatt’s signal scrambler, remember? Power should be running out just about now.” He turns around and touches his index finger to the side of his glasses, and Eggsy’s own pair reboots as well. “This is Galahad. We have retrieved the objective, requesting coordinates for the extraction point.”

“Copy that,” Merlin replies. “Transmitting them to you now. Good work, Galahad, Gareth. Time to come home.”

With a sigh, Eggsy kicks a piece of rubble absently at Rosenblatt’s desk. It clatters off the front panel, which peels off and flops flat onto the carpet to reveal the large metal cylinder bolted behind it. There is a tablet with colourful wires running out of it and into the front of the cylinder, counting down in large red numbers.

The timer ticks over to _00:01_ and Eggsy’s insides go cold. Back turned to it, Harry doesn’t see.

Eggsy moves before his thoughts have even begun to form, screams, “Get down!” as he flings himself full-flush against Harry, covering him with his body and twisting to put himself before the desk and —

The world explodes. There is a deafening roar that seems to go on and on for ages, above the snarl of blazing heat spreading all along Eggsy’s back as they’re hurled across the room. The shock wave is heart-rending, earth-splitting, cataclysmic. It pounds to the very core of his being, sears his flesh and bones as if to leave no trace of him behind. It’s so hot that his _tears_ are scalding his face. Eggsy’s own blood feels like it’s boiling, and it hurts and hurts and hurts and he tries to scream, but whatever air that’s inside his lungs is boiling too and he just can’t bring himself to do anything with it.

His arms are still around Harry and they’re tumbling and falling when the back of Eggsy’s head slams into something terribly hard, and in that moment, nothing hurts.

Everything fades.

 

***

 

Muted light plays behind his closed eyelids as Eggsy comes to. His mind is lagging too much for him to process anything, but after an indeterminable amount of time has passed, enough of it breaks the barrier of conscious thought for him to remember.

Dachau. Bomb.

_Harry._

Quickly, he tries to open his eyes and finds that he can’t. As more of his mind comes back to him, he becomes aware of a number of things — the bed that he’s lying in, a collection of beeping sounds surrounding him, the vaguely familiar antiseptic smell lingering in his nostrils. Several parts of his body are aching dully, like his head and lower back and his left leg, though for some reason a great deal is hurting a lot less than the throbbing would suggest. There are… needles, it feels like, taped to his skin — one piercing the backs of each of his hands and in the crooks of his arm and in his right wrist — and bandaging wrapped tight over everywhere else.

Then, with an ugly shock, he registers the tube between his lips and teeth, passing into his mouth and — oh, oh, what, it runs deep in his throat, further down than anything solid should ever go, and Eggsy panics for a few desperate moments because he can’t breathe around it, he should be choking by now because he can’t fucking _breathe_ , except he realises after a while that his ribs are rising and falling, and air is reaching his lungs in time with the rhythm of the soft whooshing sound coming from somewhere behind him. Like a pump, or something similar, it gives him the sensation of inhaling from within his chest. His throat is parched around the firm plastic of the tube, his tongue like sandpaper beneath it. It’s altogether strange and uncomfortable and he wants it _gone_ , but neither of his hands will move to pull it out.

None of him will. He tries opening his eyes again to no avail. He can’t even move them beneath their closed lids. His hands lie perfectly relaxed over his stomach, fingers keeping still even as he attempts to wriggle them, and yep, the exact same goes for his feet and toes. Eggsy tries everything — sitting up, blinking, the smallest possible shifts he can muster — but it’s as though all of the muscles in his body have become paralysed at once.

What’s going on? Where is he? What’s happening to him? Is Harry okay? Eggsy’s mind works, and works, and works, which is all he can do, up until when he hears a door opening and closing and someone walking up to stand next to him. There are fingers tapping at digital keys and a heavy sigh — _Merlin’s_ heavy sigh, Eggsy recognises — before the door opens again and another person enters.

“Lancelot,” Merlin says. “Did you manage to salvage anything from Gareth’s feed?”

“Barely,” Eggsy hears Roxy say, her Oxfords clacking against the floor. “The circuits were practically fried, but I managed to recover a fair bit. Took forever, though — here you go.”

More tapping, and then there’s the background noise of a video running on the computer screen across the room, Eggsy shrieking _“Get down!”_ and then the filtered-down roar of the bomb going off that runs over into static. Merlin curses, restarts the video, and Eggsy listens in carefully. Still nothing on Harry, even with the second play through.

“Looks like a GX-32 thermobaric device,” Merlin says grimly. “Rosenblatt must’ve primed it to detonate after he fled. They’re lucky to be alive.”

_They_. Eggsy’s heart attempts to leap into his throat, and fails for the obstruction currently stoppering it up. Even so, his thoughts flood with different permutations of the same thing: _Harry’s alive, Harry’s safe, Harry’s okay._

“Throwing himself in front of it like that, though, jeez,” Merlin adds. “Don’t know what he was thinking, Gareth, you crazy son of a bitch.”

_Yeah, well, fuck you very much, Merlin._

The door opens for the third time, except now there’s also the squeak of wheels accompanying the footsteps that shuffle in. There is a palpable shift in the atmosphere of the room.

“Galahad,” Merlin says with a mixture of surprise and disapproval. “You shouldn’t be out of bed so soon.”

More squeaking interspersed with the shaky gait of someone battling through a considerable amount of pain, and Harry asks, “How is he?”

“Galahad.” Merlin’s tone is low and cautious, but also contains a fair amount of warning.

“Merlin.” Harry’s voice doesn’t diminish. Quite the opposite — it grows firmer, and politer, somehow, and brooks no arguing against. “Please.”

There is nothing for a while save the bleeping and whirring of machines at work. Merlin types something and there are sounds of files or images being pulled up for display on the computer screen before he says, “The burns are severe, as are the other physical injuries, but they are not untreatable. My — our main concern, is this.”

Harry is quiet again, and then: “What do they mean?”

“The CTs show considerable swelling in sections of the brain, here and here,” Merlin says. “With what happened to him, I’m surprised it’s not any more than that. We’ve managed to relieve the pressure for now, but it’s likely that there’s been some variable degree of traumatic brain injury.”

“But he will recover, yes?”

Merlin doesn’t say anything at first, which doesn’t give Eggsy a very good feeling at all. When he speaks again, he sounds more sorry than Eggsy has ever heard him. “I don’t want to have to speculate —”

“I want to know.”

Another long pause, and Merlin explains, “He might recover. He might not. It’s difficult to say at this point. I don’t want to say it’s a lost cause because people have pulled back from worse, and Gareth’s young and healthy, but even if he wakes there may be significant impairment of cognitive function, among other things.”

The fuck? Eggsy can cognate just fine, thanks, traumatic brain injury or no. If he could just force his eyes open, roll them as sarcastically as he can, then maybe Merlin would see how very wrong he is about that. But as it stands, Eggsy can’t even raise an eyebrow.

“I did this,” Harry says, barely above a whisper. His voice is dead. “This is all my fault.”

“No,” Merlin replies immediately. “Galahad, don’t do this to yourself.”

“The bomb — I should have noticed. I should have known.”

“You _couldn’t_ have known. It was a silent timer, Gareth discovered it entirely by chance.”

True, Eggsy agrees silently. He would have missed it too, to be fair. Then Harry would be in a bed beside him with a dozen tubes and wires to match his, which — make no mistake about it, Eggsy can totally hang with the imagery of lying next to Harry — would not be a better outcome, in courteous terms.

In not-so-courteous ones, it would be absolute _bullshit_.

“But I should have,” Harry says, and his words tremble. Merlin doesn’t seem to be able to say anything in response to that, and then wheels are squeaking again and Roxy is offering to help Harry back to his room; the door snaps shut as Merlin sighs, and Eggsy’s left thinking that he’s going to need to have a serious talk with Harry when he does wake up for real.

Definitely when. Not if.

_Fuck_ if.

 

***

 

Being in a coma when you’re actually not isn’t the total bummer that Eggsy expected it to be. Aside from the obvious downside of complete paralysis, it’s not that very much different from normal. He wakes up on what he hopes are most mornings sans a stretch and a yawn, finds that his bodily functions still are not his to command, and when the irritation has subsided he always wonders if this is the day he’ll finally snap out of it and twitch a muscle or two.

It’s the boredom that gets to him, mostly. With nothing to do but lie where he is for the entire day, trapped in his own body, Eggsy occupies himself with trying to move different parts of himself, thinking about his mum and Daisy and hoping that they’re not worrying too much, and listening to his beeping heart rate and seeing if he has any control over that either. Sometimes he thinks he can will it faster just by sheer force of concentration alone, though nobody ever seems to take special note, so it’s possible that it’s just his imagination messing about with his bored, bored mind.

The funny thing is that he rarely gets lonely. People are in and out of the infirmary every couple hours — they’re mostly medical personnel, who check in on him and take samples and clean the tube in his throat, which is hands-down Eggsy’s least favourite bit of every day, because not being able to cough when it feels like your lungs are being vacuumed out through a straw sucks major bollocks. They give him injections as well, things that burn or feel like ice water in his veins, different drugs that make him drowsy and keep him under for hours. There’s one nurse whom Eggsy takes a shine to, because he always tells him the time of day with every checkup — _Good evening, Gareth, it’s seven o’ clock_ — and while Eggsy doesn’t really understand why he does that, he’s grateful for that small inkling of orientation, because otherwise he’d probably go bonkers for having no grasp on whether he’s waking into day or night every time he surfaces.

Other people visit him, too. Roxy’s an absolute mate and pops by to talk about the computer hacking module she’s currently training on. Her visits are short, but they’re frequent enough for Eggsy to develop some sense of constancy. He wouldn’t have as much to keep himself grounded otherwise. Merlin doesn’t come in as often. Whenever he does it’s usually with another doctor or two, and they discuss further tests and scans and treatment options that Eggsy gets uneasy listening to. No, he would not like for them to cut out another — hold on, what the fucking fuck, _another?_ — piece of his skull, and he is definitely against having a tube jammed in his brain, because he might be in a coma but he still has limits, though considering his inability to raise any objections it’s clear that he has absolutely no say in the matter whatsoever.

Apart from them, there’s also that person who comes in and sits by Eggsy’s bed and never says anything the whole time they’re there, which Eggsy finds pretty creepy until he finds out one day that it’s Harry and not some weirdo with a fetish for watching people sleep. It’s only when he hears the nurse he likes saying, “Good morning, Galahad,” that Eggsy stops engineering different ways of fighting his mystery visitor off if they were to attack and he regained his movement at the same moment. He still keeps what he’s managed to devise, though, because you never know when information like that might come in handy.

Assuming that it’s always been Harry, Eggsy works backwards. Harry’s been to see him… nine times this week, and it’s only Wednesday, if he’s keeping track right. And he stays the longest out of anyone who visits, usually for an hour, sometimes two. Granted, he supposes that Harry’s still injured and has the time for it, but he stopped dragging around what Eggsy’s guessing was an IV pole by the end of the previous week, and the fact that Harry’s constantly spending all this time sitting in with him makes Eggsy yearn even more for him, and then some.

Okay, so he knows he’s had this… this _thing_ for Harry almost ever since he first laid eyes on the man, even before getting wrapped up in Kingsman and subsequently finding out how much there was to love about him, but none of this is helping to defuse fantasies of what he might mean to Harry in return. A gesture like this is too easy to misinterpret, Eggsy knows. He’s the sort of person who makes these mistakes, who wants this to be something it’s not, wants it badly enough to have been wary of the things he’s said and done around Harry for months. And as difficult as it is, he refuses to let himself read any more into it, for both their sakes, just leaves it be.

Still, he wishes Harry would say something to him, anything. It’s nice that he’s there, but all the same, above all else, Eggsy misses the sound of his voice.

 

***

 

One afternoon, Eggsy wakes from a drug-induced stupor to an ongoing conversation in his room.

“…just saying, he’s been comatose for two weeks,” he hears someone saying unhappily. The words are muffled in Eggsy’s ears and he struggles against the tide of dozy sleep, straining to hear when he realises that it’s Harry. “Why isn’t he getting better? Why hasn’t he woken up yet?”

“It took you nearly a month,” Merlin reminds him. “And that was from smoke inhalation. Brain injury’s far less forgiving than that.”

“But he still looks —” Harry stops, and doesn’t seem to be able to finish what he was about to say.

“These things just take time. All we can do now is wait.”

Yeah, yeah. Eggsy’s been waiting all this while, himself. He may as well be the most patient person in the world by now. It wouldn’t be so bad if he could move about, or just _eat_ something — with the stuff they’ve been dripping into him he hasn’t been hungry for the longest time but damn, he’d do anything for a pizza. Like, even having it intravenously would be an acceptable compromise, if at all possible. He’s not even sure if his taste buds still work after all the plastic he’s been forced to taste during every second that he spends awake.

Harry sniffs, and says, “I just — I wish I could do something for him.”

_You already have_ , Eggsy thinks, mildly confused about it. Daily visits most certainly count as _something_ in his book, if not _everything_. There’s nothing more he could conscientiously ask of Harry even if he tried.

Well, that’s not entirely true, but —

“You could talk to him,” Merlin suggests. “You don’t do that already, do you?”

“No,” Harry says. “What’s the point? He can’t hear me.”

_Yes, I can, I fucking can, Harry —_

“Nevertheless,” Merlin says. “I promise you, it can help.”

“Will it help _him?”_

A moment passes. Eggsy can just about sense the sad little smile on Merlin’s face. “Give it a try. There’s nothing to be lost in it, is there?”

Footsteps leave the room, a single person’s. Not seconds later, the chair adjacent to Eggsy’s bed creaks tiredly. With what he knows is Harry’s presence beside him, Eggsy finds himself wishing he could hold on to his breathing, but treacherously, mechanically, it continues as it has done so for weeks.

“Um,” Harry says uncertainly, after a long while. “Hello, Eggsy. I, uh. It’s me. Harry. Or Galahad, whichever you prefer. But I suppose that doesn’t really matter now, does it…”

It does matter. Eggsy will always prefer _Harry_ to anything else, no question about it.

“I know you probably can’t hear me, but. Merlin tells me that it is… helpful.” Harry breathes in and exhales on the last word. “So, here I am. Speaking to you. I hope you’ve been sleeping well, and — no, god, what am I saying? I hope your rest is going well, and — that you’re recovering. Yes, that’s what I meant by. Sleeping. Not that you aren’t, sleeping. Right now, so to speak. Though I don’t doubt you’ve had more than ample time for that recently…”

Eggsy listens on, astonished. Harry, inarticulate? It’s never seemed a remote possibility, not in a million years. The man practically bleeds elegance. Goes to show even the best have their bad days, Eggsy supposes. He can feel the beginnings of a chuckle in his empty stomach. Try as he might, as much as he wants to, he can’t force it out or pull his dry lips into a smile.

“I wanted to wait until you woke to tell you this, but never mind that, I’ll say it again then,” Harry says. “Thank you, Eggsy. For saving my life. I would be dead, or very badly injured, if it weren’t for your quickness, and bravery, and I. I hope to be able to repay you in kind, someday.”

_Don’t worry about it, Harry. Always got your back, remember?_

“I think you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve tracked Rosenblatt to Latvia, and Ector’s picking up the trail as we speak.” His tone grows marginally more conversational, enough so that Eggsy almost believes Harry’s forgotten he can’t respond. Or maybe he hasn’t and conceals it well, but either way he has Eggsy’s full attention. “We might even see an apprehension within the month, if everything goes well. I would have very much liked for the two of us to have been the ones to conduct it; he was part of our mission, after all. Rather a shame, if you ask me. I’d be willing to wager that we could’ve gotten him weeks ago, if it weren’t for — if none of this had, if it hadn’t…”

He trails off, and Eggsy waits for him to continue. But then Harry swallows audibly and his breath slices out of him in an angry snort and he growls, “Pointless,” with the sound of the chair scraping abruptly against linoleum; Harry’s standing up, Eggsy’s heart seizes with dismay, and he hears again, much more bitterly, “Utterly pointless,” before heels are striking the floor, leading away from him, and Eggsy’s on his own again, colder than he’s felt in days.

 

***

 

Harry returns three days later. Well, three’s a rough estimate — it’s possibly four, or even more than that, because Eggsy remembers a procedure being talked over him the day after, and something warm and tingly being seeped into the needle in his arm before losing consciousness entirely, and then he’d woken up goodness knows how long later with the back of his skull throbbing badly and the disconcerting feeling of even more drugs swimming in his system. He hates it, losing track of his time here. Even a day gone feels like he’s been robbed of something vital. Unable to move or speak, unable to even breathe on his own, his time is essentially all that he has left.

Anyway, Harry comes back, which is what Eggsy focuses on instead of the many new aches knocking about his body. At least he hopes it’s Harry and not the creeper he’s not a hundred percent sure doesn’t actually exist, because the visitor at his bedside is quiet for an eerily long while until someone is clearing his throat, and yeah, that’s Harry all right. But Eggsy starts to worry, then, that they’ve gone back to square one, or that they possibly never left it in the first place — the prospect of Harry reverting to the silent treatment makes Eggsy’s head hurt in a manner that has nothing to do with the stuff that’s been taken out of it.

He worries, and hurts, and worries some more before he hears Harry clear his throat again and say, “Good afternoon, Eggsy. It’s Harry, again. I’m sorry I haven’t been in to see you recently, it’s just been… difficult. For me, I should say.”

Difficult? Eggsy’s the one hooked up to a dozen machines and breathing and eating and pissing through tubes here. Nobody should be allowed to talk about how difficult their lives are when they’re in the same room as him, period.

“I brought you something today,” Harry says, and there’s the rustling of something being removed from a plastic bag, “ _Pygmalion_ , by George Bernard Shaw. I wonder if that might sound familiar to you?”

_Nope._

“They wrote a musical based on this book. A musical that became very, very famous.”

_Oh. You mean —_

“ _My Fair Lady_ , yes.” A smile in his voice, Harry flips through the pages. “I saw this in a charity shop and, well. It made me think of you. And then I thought, you know what, I’ve still got a few more days left before I’m back to active duty. Might as well do something useful with myself. I could read it to you, if you don’t mind.”

Don’t mind? _Don’t mind?_

Would Eliza Doolittle mind elocution lessons?

“Of course, if you’d prefer I didn’t, just say the word and I shan’t. I — I’ll understand completely. Otherwise, I’ll assume you’re game. That’s a fair cop, isn’t it?”

Not even close, but Eggsy isn’t about to complain.

“I’m putting you down for a yes, then? Yes? Lovely. Just grand. Now, let’s see here, Chapter One… no, sorry, _Act_ One. It’s actually a play, you see. With characters and lines and scenes — oh dear, this might be rather confusing for you, now that I think about it…”

Eggsy doesn’t care. Harry could read the bloody Oxford English Dictionary to him and it’d still be the best thing in the whole wide world.

“I suppose I could try to do voices, if it makes it any easier for you to follow,” Harry muses. “But just so you know, I’m absolutely ghastly at theatre, so you’re free to laugh at me all you want. I won’t mind at all. You have my word.”

A thread of hope lurks in the undercurrent of his words. Eggsy’s chest keeps rising and falling, even for the sudden wistfulness that has coiled up in it like a spring.

Harry sighs out a short, resigned breath. “I hope you’re aware of what you’re getting yourself into,” he warns as he turns a page, and without further ado, begins to read.

“Covent Garden, at 11.15 p.m…”

 

***

 

For the rest of the week, Harry visits him every afternoon and, without fail, picks up the story from where he left off the previous day. He sits in for an hour each time, just reading the book to Eggsy. Harry does each and every line, and true to his word, even attempts to sound like the characters they belong to. All of them. Eggsy’s never actually watched My Fair Lady before, much less this particular play, but even the umpteenth time of experiencing Eliza Doolittle as a baritone man on helium has him internally howling with laughter that’s every bit as full-bodied as the first, such that he feels he may explode for having to keep it in. Where Arthur and Valentine and Rosenblatt all failed, Harry Hart playing every character in My Fair Lady is going to be what does him in, the true death of Gary Unwin, surely.

Somehow, it gets even better than that. Partway through Act Three, Harry starts experimenting with accents, switches around the voices and repeats lines until Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and Colonel Pickering are pretty much indistinguishable from each other and Professor Higgins is suddenly more Scottish than Sean Connery. None of it makes a shred of sense, it’s absolutely ridiculous to listen to, and Eggsy just wants more. Merlin actually walks in on them once, and ends up proving himself a huge sport by showing both Harry and Eggsy how it’s really, _really_ done. For that, Eggsy can almost forgive him for cutting his head open twice. Almost.

Much too soon, it’s Harry’s last day off-duty. They’re on Act Five, the final one, and it sounds like there’s still a ways to go to the end of the play when a nurse informs Harry that visiting hours are over. He doesn’t speed through the remainder, or try to bargain for more time, and Eggsy’s heart sinks as he hears Harry sigh and close the book, setting it on the bedside table.

“I’m sorry, Eggsy,” Harry says. As always, he sounds so apologetic about it that Eggsy wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him and shout in his face until Harry understands, _you’ve done nothing wrong, why do you keep saying that?_ “Looks like we’ll have to finish up some other time.”

_Aw, no, Harry, don’t go, please don’t go —_

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Harry says, and for all his sincerity, Eggsy doesn’t believe him. There is a pause before Harry’s hand closes over his, holds on, squeezes gently. “You’ll be awake then, won’t you? Promise me?”

_Yes_ , Eggsy thinks immediately, even though he knows he can’t know that for sure. _Yes, I promise, I will, I promise, I —_

“Goodnight, Eggsy,” Harry says softly, then his hand is gone and so is he, the heat of his touch still echoing along the skin of Eggsy’s cooling knuckles.

 

***

 

Eggsy has no qualms about napping away the next few times that he’s awake. The painkillers help with that, now that he has little reason not to give in whenever another dose slips into his abused veins. The tiredness is more constant now, as is the pain. At least they’ve stopped removing bits of him and now just leave him in peace, more or less, save the usual checks he’s afraid that he’s slowly getting used to.

Another week comes and goes and it’s been an entire month gone, with another bleak month of nothingness ahead of him. The worst part about it all, besides the mind-numbing boredom, is the frustration. Each day is another battle lost, another night spent unmoving, another finger not lifted. And it’s not like Eggsy isn’t doing his utmost best to make his own body listen to him; the thing is, it wars back just as hard. He tries and tries to the point of tears that refuse to come, to the point of screaming so loud in his mind that at times he can’t believe other people don’t hear him. He breaks down and pulls himself together several times over, and he finds some pride in that but always feels more and more ragged, as if he’s being whittled away with every successive pass, leaving him smaller and rough-edged, just that much less complete than he was before.

He has no good days anymore. There are bad days, and worse days when he manages to trick himself into believing for a moment that the footsteps approaching his bed are Harry’s, that he’s going to find out if Eliza Doolittle ends up the lady she always dreamed of becoming, that Harry is going to sit beside him and take his hand and speak to him and just _stay_. Disappointment hurts more than anything else, hurts like a blunt knife twisting in his heart, but Eggsy doesn’t stop hoping. He thinks of his unspoken promise to Harry and it’s the thought of getting to see him again that keeps Eggsy trying harder and harder every day to open his eyes.

 

***

 

The first time Eggsy wakes with the feeling of someone else’s hand in his, he instinctively writes it off as a dream and almost goes back to sleep, but then he hears Harry’s voice in time to mentally slap himself conscious before he can drop off again.

“…left alone, rattles his cash in his pocket, chuckles, and disports himself in a highly self-satisfied manner,” Harry reads, and lets the book fall shut. “And that’s the end. What do you think? A satisfying conclusion, no?”

Eggsy wouldn’t know, seeing as he’d slept right through it; fuck. Having missed even a second of Harry being here makes him so angry he swears he hears his blood pressure go up a couple notches on the monitor he’s attached to.

“I should probably get you something else, now that we’re finished,” Harry says thoughtfully. “An actual book this time, perhaps what all you young people are reading nowadays. Like that _Fifty Shades_ stuff everyone’s talking about, but I don’t really know…”

_Oh, Harry._

Harry lifts Eggsy’s hand up and over the bed railings, taking it in both of his own. He traces Eggsy’s nails with his thumbs, clasps his fingers, massages warmth into the bones of his hand. He finds the pulse point in Eggsy’s wrist and keeps a thumb to it, pressing lightly so as to feel the steady, minuscule beat there.

“You’ve been sleeping for so long,” Harry murmurs. “I think it’s been long enough, don’t you?”

Eggsy concurs wholeheartedly. His body, on the other hand, dissents like the goddamn traitor he knows it is.

He hears Harry lean forward. Warm breath wisps against his fingers. “Wake up, Eggsy,” Harry says. “Open your eyes. Just a little bit. Please?”

That, Eggsy finds he still cannot grant, but if he tries hard enough, concentrates with all of his being, he thinks he can just about — so close he can feel it — touch him back, the barest brush of his index finger down the heel of Harry’s palm.

 

***

 

Of course, because Eggsy’s life is so fucking great now, the next thing he has to do is almost die. Again.

Harry doesn’t bring him _Fifty Shades_ after all, which is a relief, and acquires a copy of _The Maze Runner_ instead, which Eggsy’s never heard of but seems interesting enough judging by the first couple pages. As Harry reads to him, Eggsy’s attention is gradually drawn to an uncomfortable sensation beginning in his chest. The occasional stray ache is familiar enough, but by the end of Chapter One he can’t focus on the book anymore. The feeling’s gotten worse, spidering out all over him, to his chin and down his arms and stomach, and it’s getting worse. It’s as though there’s a vise crushing around his ribs, every breath like glass shards being grated on the surface of his lungs. Another minute passes, and then he’s in so much pain he can’t even think about what’s happening besides the obvious fact that something is very, very wrong.

An alarm sounds somewhere above him, and is followed by a second and a third, until it’s like the whole lot of them are going off at the same time. Harry stops reading at once, his hand tightening in Eggsy’s before the spine of the book hits the table and he’s hammering the call button repeatedly, shouting, “Help, someone, please help me!” as the pain becomes white noise filling up Eggsy’s head.

Everything that happens after that is muffled, then — the door bursting open and people rushing in, Merlin saying urgently, “He can’t be here, get him out,” and Harry’s hand being wrested from his with someone else saying, “Come with me, Galahad,” which is drowned out by Harry’s voice, edging close to a scream, “No, no, _no;_ you are not doing this, Eggsy, listen to me, _listen to me_ , don’t you dare do this, _don’t you_ _dare_ , Eggsy…!”

_Ah, fuck_ , Eggsy thinks, right before he blacks out. Dying sucks, spoiler alert, but for the moment he understands that, it also occurs to him that it’s… fine. Out of all the ways to go, this isn’t too bad, is it? Safe at headquarters, very well looked after, and on top of that, in the same room as the love of his life. Not too shabby a death considering how else it could have happened — explosions, death traps, poison, a bullet to the face — hundreds upon thousands of other possibilities that wouldn’t have involved Harry sitting next to him, holding his hand and saying Eggsy’s name over and over again.

His only regret is that he never got the chance to say goodbye, that’s all.

 

***

 

If anyone asked Eggsy what his fondest memory of his time with Harry was, he wouldn’t have an answer to that. Wouldn’t be able to narrow it down to one of the infinite moments he keeps close to his heart, secreted away with the confession he’s always wanted to scream out but never once had the nerve to do so. Moments such as Harry smiling at him in that tiny dressing room from so very long ago, Harry carefully stirring a martini with Eggsy holding a bottle of Vermouth in front of him, Harry insisting on teaching him how to tie a trinity knot and doing it for him anyway when Eggsy forgot a day later. Harry’s hand on his shoulder, and Eggsy not telling him how much he loved him. Among those, choosing even favourites would be an impossible task.

He would like to try, honestly. But that wouldn’t be fair to Harry, who makes every minute that Eggsy spends with him the happiest ones of his life, whom Eggsy still doesn’t know how he ever came to deserve. What he does know is that he wouldn’t give any of it up for the world. If he had to do it all over again in another lifetime, if he knew that it would end like this, he’d still look Harry straight in the eye and say _yes_ , because he wouldn’t be able to imagine any other life without him.

 

***

 

The next time Eggsy wakes, he is greeted by an intense wave of grogginess. His chest still hurts, but it also feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton wool. There’s a hand in his, except he’s too exhausted to hang on to consciousness, much less figure out who it belongs to, and falls back asleep within seconds.

When he wakes again, the lights are dimmed and there is an argument taking place in his room. One of the voices belongs to Harry, the angrier-sounding of the two, and as Eggsy’s mind slowly surfaces the words being exchanged become much less muddled.

“…the rules, Sir, that’s all I’m saying,” says the voice that Eggsy recognises as the nurse he likes.

“Why?” Harry demands. “What difference does it make if I’m here? You can still carry out your checks just fine, can’t you?”

“That’s not the point,” the nurse says, patience audibly straining. “He needs his rest, as I’m sure you do, too. Please leave the ward, Sir.”

“I will not.”

A sigh, then, “I can have you escorted, if you are more amenable to that.”

Harry doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t leave either. “Stanley, yes?”

“…yes, Sir.”

“Then I am very sorry about this, Stanley. Truly am.”

There’s a flitting sound of a dart being fired, a choked-off gasp, and the heavy slump of a body falling to the floor.

_Holy fuck._

Harry’s hands find his again. There is a heartbreaking gentleness to the way they fit over each other, and Eggsy’s shock drains out of him all too quickly. It never fails to astonish, the effect that Harry has on him. Touching him just feels right. _He_ feels right, the only constant upon which Eggsy can rely.

“How could you,” Harry says suddenly, and it takes Eggsy a while to realise that he’s being spoken to. “I can’t believe you would — is that what you’re saying, then? Were you giving up? Christ, Eggsy. Stop it already. Please, just. Stop it.”

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry. If I could, I wouldn’t ever leave you. I just wish there was a way for me to let you know that._

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” His voice thickens, shakes, cracks, and then it is steady again, like Harry hasn’t broken down into the tears that are dripping on the back of Eggsy’s hand. “You can hear me, I know you can, stop pretending. Don’t just lie there, you stupid little berk, say _something_.”

Eggsy tries. He tries everything. _Sorry I nearly died. You sound shit when you’re crying. Don’t call me a berk, you gorgeous prick. Sorry I nearly died again._

_If I wake up, if I say something, will you give me a kiss?_

Harry sniffs, blows his nose and sniffs again. He rests his head on the mattress, his hair rustling the sheets covering Eggsy’s hip. “I miss you,” he whispers, and though the words are muffled in his blanket, Eggsy hears them loud and clear: “I miss you so much.”

He doesn’t know if he falls asleep before Harry or if it happens the other way round, but the last thing he remembers is Harry’s lips pressed to his fingers, breath flocking out along with thrum of the machines keeping Eggsy alive.

 

***

 

Merlin is understandably livid about the nurse. Harry apologises in the morning and says nothing about being awarded extra duties. Eggsy tries not to be too happy about him having to stay in the mansion for longer than he already does.

A week later, Harry’s sent out on another assignment. He tells Eggsy before he leaves, holds his hand, kisses him goodbye on the forehead. Eggsy makes sure to wake up every day that Harry isn’t there so he knows for certain how much longer he has to wait before the assignment is over.

They finish _The Maze Runner_ when Harry’s back. The next one is _Fifty Shades_ , the product of an impulse buy.

Harry reads it to him, and Eggsy listens.

 

***

 

“…because I'm fifty shades of fucked-up, Anastasia,” Harry reads, and lets out yet another of his numerous exasperated groans. “Like it even needs to be said, good lord. Why do people even _read_ this, I just don’t understand —”

_Yeah, me neither. For the love of god, Harry, go get something else that doesn’t make me want to have the rest of my brain removed._

“I guess if it’s your kind of literature, I won’t judge,” Harry says stiffly, holding the book at arm’s length, as though he might catch a disease from it. “Though I’d imagine you’d have better taste than… this.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes. _Whatever, Harry._

Huh.

His eyes are open, and he blinks, blinks again to make sure.

He looks at Harry at the exact same time that Harry looks back and drops the book.

_Harry_ , he tries to say, lips moving around the tube in his mouth, right before he starts to choke.

“Eggsy,” Harry breathes, and then, in a bellow, “ _Merlin!_ Merlin, come quick!”

His whole body seized with the effort of coughing, Eggsy tries to sit up but he’s still too weak, and close to two months of immobility weigh him down. He coughs and coughs until he’s breathless with it, clawing at Harry’s hands that grip his like a drowning man’s, before there are more people surrounding his bed, hands that brace him by the shoulders as the tube slides from his throat; he feels it close and open, working uselessly against the sudden hollowness left behind, and he can’t remember how to breathe for several seconds before it returns to him in a head-spinning rush, and then he’s drawing his first ragged lungful of air and he just lets it shatter out of him.

“Oh my god,” Harry says. Relief crumples his expression, creases lines into his forehead and around the corners of his eyes. “Oh my god, Eggsy, thank goodne — _mmmff!”_

_Harry_ , Eggsy thinks, can’t stop thinking his name, and he tries to say it as he clutches at the lapels of Harry’s suit, pulling him deeper against his own mouth and smothering his words. The abrupt burst of strength doesn’t last very long but it’s all he needs, because Harry is now wrapping his arms around Eggsy’s shoulders and kissing him back, fever-pitched, like he’s never going to stop. Harry’s nose is warm and damp, his lips pliant and tasting of spit and black tea. A sob breaks into the space between them, and Eggsy can’t for the life of him tell who it belongs to.

“Harry,” he finally croaks, and his voice is barely recognisable, rings broken and foreign in his ears. He wants Harry, _needs_ him now, but he’s tired, so tired that he can hardly keep his eyes open. Eggsy mumbles something else, just a bit of gibberish he doesn’t even think makes it into words.

“I know,” he hears Harry answer, or imagines he does. “I know. I’m here. I’m here.”

And he is.

 

***

 

When Eggsy stirs himself awake, Harry is still in his chair — yes, it does feel appropriate to call it that now, _Harry’s_ chair — watching him. Eggsy fumbles with the mask over his nose and mouth, tugging it down by the elastic band with a clumsy hand so it dangles just under his chin, hissing oxygen.

“Hi,” he says.

Harry smiles. “You really should keep that on.”

Eggsy grins weakly back. “S’not really my style.”

“I’d imagine not.”

Under the blanket, Harry’s hand squeezes his, a gesture Eggsy reciprocates all too willingly now that he actually can. He twines his fingers with Harry's and presses their palms together.

“How long’s it been?” he asks.

“Close to two months.”

“Not that. I mean,” Eggsy closes his drowsy eyes for a moment, breathes in — he’ll never take that for granted again — and opens them. “Since I was up.”

“Oh. About four hours,” Harry says. “Merlin gave you something to help you sleep.”

That explains the familiar fuzzy feeling in Eggsy’s brain. “Ah,” he mumbles. “Wanker.”

Harry tuts at him disapprovingly. "Language.”

Eggsy tries and can only manage a pale imitation of a shrug. It's close enough. “Have you been here all this while?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“You’ve got to be knackered.”

Harry shakes his head. “I’ll be fine. What’s a little sleep?”

“Sounds like you need Merlin more than I do,” Eggsy jokes, and Harry chuckles.

“Not quite there yet, I’m afraid,” he says and leans closer to rest his elbows on the edge of the mattress.

Eggsy wants to touch Harry’s face. He lifts his hand as far up as he can and Harry does the rest, bringing it to his cheek and turning his head to kiss Eggsy’s palm, the base of his thumb, his wrist.

“I could hear you, you know,” Eggsy tells him. “Everything that you said to me. I heard.”

Harry’s lips thin. There is an uncertain look behind the lenses of his glasses. “And? What did you think?”

Eggsy studies him for a while, then sighs his way to a smile. “I think I fucking love you, Harry,” he says, running his fingertips against Harry’s stubbly jaw.

“I… see,” Harry says, his expression soft. “I — it makes me glad to hear that.”

“Glad enough to kiss me?” Eggsy asks, smirking.

Harry cocks a quizzical eyebrow at him, but laughs, “Always, Eggsy,” and does.

It’s a lovely kiss, soft and dry and without teeth nor tongue. Eggsy doesn’t even have to get up because Harry swoops down on him, maintaining a level at which Eggsy can still participate to the best of his ability without straining himself. He lifts his chin to savour Harry’s mouth over his own, lifts some more to kiss the tip of his nose, and Harry blushes.

“So,” Eggsy says as Harry pulls back. “You gonna read to me, or what?”

“Hm? Ah, yes. If you’d like. Let me just get to where we were —”

“Not that one,” Eggsy says hurriedly, before Harry can reach for the _Fifty Shades_ book. “Er, you wouldn’t happen to have anything else, would you?”

The relief that spreads across Harry’s face is not disguised in the slightest. “Just those that I’ve already read, so you can have _Maze Runner_ or _Pygmalion_ , either one.”

“ _Pygmalion,_ ” Eggsy says without hesitation.

Harry smiles again. “I had a feeling you would.”

“Don’t forget the voices,” Eggsy reminds him. “I’ll want the voices, else we can go on with _Fifty Shades_ , see if I care.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Harry sighs exaggeratedly, but nods.

And that’s that, really. Eggsy smiles as Harry helps reposition the mask over his face, and settles back onto soft pillows to watch Harry retrieve the book from the bedside table. He breathes, feeling like the luckiest bastard in the world for the moment, and waits for the story to begin.

**Author's Note:**

> The condition Eggsy has in this piece is a real medical disorder -- it's called [total locked-in syndrome](http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Vegetative-state/Pages/Symptoms.aspx), and it's pretty uncommon, but it is still a thing that happens. It goes without saying that some (a lot) medical elements concerning diseases of consciousness have been distorted for the sake of narrative, so this is the unnecessary disclaimer that none of what happens here should be considered to be a fully accurate representation of the actual pathophysiology of traumatic brain injury.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and you can pop by on [Tumblr](http://fideliant.tumblr.com/) to say hi!

**Works inspired by this one:**

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  * [The Bombing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6246763) by [fragilelittleteacup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilelittleteacup/pseuds/fragilelittleteacup)




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